


your heart is a muscle the size of a fist

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: 4am ramblings lol, Other, Sorry for the ending, ahaHahah, doyoung and renjun domt actually have a relationship together theyre just bros, doyoung and renjun uwu, doyoung hippie?, doyoung just wants to help, doyoung travels a lot, i guess, man idk how to tag, renjun baby, renjun doesnt deserve the world, renjun has a dog but its only mentioned like 3 times, renjun might be.... homeless oops, whats a story by jun if it aint sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21637960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: People’s fucking faces. He watched and lived and felt a million distinct and separate truths beginning to accumulate within his chest like a murmuring crowd. It was an ache inside a need, a white hot expansion of memory and intuition.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun & Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	your heart is a muscle the size of a fist

**Author's Note:**

> if u see any typos pls. i will fix it. i wrote this past midnight drunk on nothingness and the promise of golden dreams. leave a bunch of kudos and comments so i know how you liked it!

Dongyoung has been on the road for three years, has circled the globe, east to west, north to south. El D.F., Tegucigalpa, San Salvador. Shanghai. Bangkok and Delhi. He trusts small signs, the ordinary language of everyday things. 

  
He travels because he knows he does not belong. The home where he had been born is not his home. Something was missing. From him or from his home, he didn’t know, and so he wanders. He roams and tramps and travels, looking for what he didn’t know. 

  
He had wanted a knowledge born not from any school or teacher, but from his own eyes and ears. Where did he belong? To whom did he belong? He didn’t know.

  
He liked to walk. Sometimes he just wandered a city, trying to enjoy the feeling of being lost, the feeling as if he were a satellite thrown open to every channel.

  
People’s fucking faces. He watched and lived and felt a million distinct and separate truths beginning to accumulate within his chest like a murmuring crowd. It was an ache inside a need, a white hot expansion of memory and intuition. 

  
It was so easy to forget what he was traveling for. He was just a kid without a system, and the more he saw the less he understood. A million singular truths accepting inside him. A million strands. A needle moving so fast he couldn’t see it, could only feel it, inking a new face, a new line, a new story. He just woke up in the mornings with a new tattoo he could never see, never share. Just felt it deposited like crushed color beneath his skin.

At the age of twenty, Dongyoung ran into a boy begging for change on the oil-stained concrete of a long distance bus station in Hong Kong. 

He was wearing a traditional poncho so cracked and bug-infested it might have been in the dumpsters for years. He had a dog on a frayed piece of rope and a hand lettered sign leaning against the dog's plastic bowl.

“Spare some change, brother?” he said in Korean. 

It was the dog that did it, or maybe it was the Korean. It made Dongyoung want to kick him in the head. Or maybe it was his expression, eyes narrow and lower lip protruding, some air about him that was both self righteous and proud.

He wanted to kick him in the damn head. But instead he knelt beside him and unzipped his pack. The dog barely lifted its snout. 

How pathetic and stupid and sad. 

He took out his wallet and handed him a green twenty dollar bill, seeing himself looking out from the window of his bus and asking himself why the fuck he did it even as he did it.

Later on that night, he returned to the bus stop and offered the boy a hand. He didn't know why.

“I'm Doyoung. Do you want to come with me? I'll give you food, and a bed to sleep on.” 

The boy took his hand with a stupid kind of tender trust that almost had Dongyoung scoffing in disbelief. And so they walk, hand in hand, to the nearest food place and Dongyoung watched the hungry boy shovel food into his mouth, dropping small morsels of food to the tiny pup that scarfed it down just as quickly as its owner.

Dongyoung observed this act with a sense of disgusted fascination, watching them as man and beast barbarically finished the 2 plates in front of them together. 

The boy wiped his mouth with the rough sleeve of his poncho and scowled.

“What’s your name?” Dongyoung asked, making eye contact with the boy as he spun his spoon between his fingers. “You know mine, so tell me yours.”

The boy swallowed again and chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds before replying. “I'm Renjun.”

Dongyoung tilted his head and nodded, leaning into the rundown seat of the street side McDonald’s rip-off. 

"And your dog's?" 

"Dà Bai."

“I have a room rented in a motel, not far from here. Do you need a place to sleep?” 

  
Renjun nodded very timidly, and Dongyoung was suddenly held with rage- not at the boy, no, but at the world for pushing the boy into this position.

Dongyoung stood up and jerked his head towards the door. “Take your mutt and let's go.”

Renjun fumbled with the dog's piece of rope and tripped out of his seat, following Dongyoung dutifully. They walked down the streets together and Dongyoung could feel the boy (Renjun, his name was Renjun,) walk a little closer to him as the drunkards and crackheads in the alleyways jeered and catcalled at him. 

When they made it to the motel room, Renjun stood in the middle of the room and began to unbutton his shirt.

Dongyoung yelped as Renjun's fingers began working on unbuckling his belt. “What are you doing?” he asked, horrified.

Renjun frowned at this and continued to try and remove the belt from the loops of Dongyoung's jeans. “I’m paying you back for the food and the bed. This is the least I could do.” He paused for a second. “Though if you’re embarrassed by the dog seeing, I’ll go ahead and put him in the bathroom.”

Dongyoung gaped at him, swatting the roaming hands away. “Listen. I’m not that type of person.” 

Renjun regarded him with an air of disbelief. “Alright.”

Dongyoung grimaced. “I’m serious."

Renjun shrugged again and sat on the edge of the bed. “Okay.”

Dongyoung sighed and sat across from the boy. “If you’re tired, you can sleep now. Nothing will happen.”

He observed the boy’s skin as Renjun yanked his shirt back on in shame. There were purple-yellow bruises on his shoulders and ribs and back like an odd constellation of pain.

Against his better judgement, he reached out and his fingers softly grazed the coloring on Renjun's pale skin.

He jumped up, cursing in rapid fire Chinese and whirled around to face Dongyoung.

"Fucking hell you cold bitch your fingers are like the dead why are they so cold what the fuck-"

Dongyoung's eyes widened and he scooted back. "Oh my god. Sorry." 

Renjun scowled at him and tugged at the bed covers. "Go to sleep, old man."

Dongyoung frowned at the boy. "You're probably only like five years younger than me. I'm not an old man."

Renjun shuffled beneath the covers and turned over.

* * *

From then on, they find themselves in a normal routine, walking together and looking around the city.

  
They stop on a bridge today, overlooking the city’s dirty muck colored river with a bag of cotton candy.

  
"You ever wanna die?" Renjun asks casually, and he yanks another tuft of cotton candy off of the floss he has on a stick. He pinches it between two fingers, and Dongyoung knows he likes the feeling of compressed sugar between his fingers before it dissolves into nothing but a sticky, syrupy mess.

The question has Dongyoung leaning back. He pulls his lollipop out from between his lips and scrutinizes it. He tries to get a read on the situation at hand.

He's known Renjun for only a couple of days, but already he knows that this could either be a heart to heart confession, or simply a deep conversation, a thought that had passed through and vaguely knotted into the webs of his mind. 

He notes the way Renjun's fingers lace together and nervously tug, looping and twisting in a cycle, and the way his eyes aren't exactly teary, but they are shinier than makes him comfortable, and Dongyoung sighs because he has the answer he was afraid of.

"I mean, yeah." Dongyoung's voice comes out gravelly and broken, and he clears his throat before speaking again. "I used to think it was easier, you know, like a while back. You had no problems if you were dead."

He pulls his lighter out of his pocket and nervously ignites the flame, watching it dance and twirl for a few seconds before Dà Bai nudges his head beneath Dongyoung's arm. 

He threads his fingers between the dog's fur and leans forward. Renjun won't look at him.

"Hand me one of those," Renjun requests in a soft voice.

Dongyoung looks at him through narrowed eyes and pulls another lollipop out of his pocket.

Renjun takes it from him and puts it in his mouth. He pulls it back out and Dongyoung is still watching him.

He slides his hand closer to the boy, chewing on the insides of his cheeks. He picks at the skin with his teeth, pursing his lips to the side. He knows he has plenty of bad habits he needs to take care of, but right now he's much more concerned for Renjun and what might happen. What does Renjun need? Validation? Reasons he should live?

Dongyoung ponders it for a bit longer. Renjun is too beautiful for death, he thinks to himself. He is a good boy with a hopeful future and so much talent. Death wouldn't be good for him.

"I don't think it's so bad to live, though," he says, the lollipop muffling his words.

Renjun draws his shoulders together and scoots just a tiny bit away from Dongyoung.

Fear overflows Dongyoung's senses. His mouth fills with saliva, dread-full. Clearly he isn't saying whatever the right thing is. He pulls the lollipop out and tries to keep his tone even as he continues on like nothing has happened. 

"I just think that there's always something more. I want to live, generally. I don't know what I'll accomplish by dying."

"Right," Renjun mutters.

Dongyoung swallows thickly. He needs to ask Renjun another question, but he's scared that if he speaks his next question the situation will only spiral further.

"Do you... ever want to die, Renjun?" 

His voice is light and airy, a casual tone to a question that they both knew was important.

Renjun laughs. "No, hyung."

He shakes his head and sighs. "I was just wondering."

He tears another piece of cotton candy off, rolling it into a ball before pressing his fingers together. The sugar becomes sticky and they both stare at his stained fingertips. There is nothing but the sound of the water and cars in the far distance. Renjun turns his eyes to the depths below them before he holds his hand out. He allows the last of the cotton candy to slip from his grasp and into the water.

Dongyoung holds his breath- and then the atmosphere is broken by Renjun's sweetened smile as he stands, rubbing his hands on his shirt.

The boy tilts his neck back, sweet smile still on his face, hair falling out of his eyes. "It's a nice night, isn't it? You can finally see the stars. How nice must it be to float among them one day."

  
Dongyoung allows his head to drop back, too, and inspects the sky.

  
"Come on, hyung, it's late. Let's get back."

  
Dongyoung knows his cheer and smile are fake, but he stands too.

  
Getting off this bridge with Renjun is a victory in some way, enough of one to fool himself into thinking things are okay for a little longer. He talked to Renjun. Surely no one can expect more than that from him? The boy himself had said he was just curious. Who is Dongyoung to doubt and read so far into his words?

He almost has himself fooled by the time he unlocks the door and slips inside their motel room.

"I'm a good person," he thinks to himself, "I'm a good person."

Later on that night Dongyoung curls warm with Renjun’s body at his back, drifting like a leaf on the breeze of the dog's easy sleeping breath, his arm slung around its neck. He tries to forget their conversation. This is small moment of peace in what had been a long and stupid road, a family of sorts.

When he wakes up in the morning, everything is gone. Renjun. Dà Bai. Dongyoung's backpack and all its contents. His money, his food. His heart and all that might have once cared because, yes, he has finally learned it for himself.

Care too much and the world will murder you cold.

**Author's Note:**

> ahahasqsdjks so ORIGINALLY i wrote my characters in as johnny and mark, but after more consideration i decided that i really liked the concept of doyoung traveling the world to find where he fits and meeting renjun in bangkok!!!!!! so i wrote those parts in, replaced johnny w doyoung and mark w renjun, and edited their dialogue haha i hope you enjoyed!


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